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System Setup:

The low-cost SilverStone Strider Essential 500W was installed
into one of our test systems boasting an Intel Core 2 Duo E8000 clocked to 4.00GHz,
an ASRock P45 motherboard, Western Digital 160GB SATA 2.0 hard drive, 2GB of DDR3
system memory, and dual ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards. The chassis was a Lian
Li PC-A05N ATX enclosure, which handled this SilverStone power supply quite
well and the cables were all of adequate length. The system powered up without
any issues and the power supply was impeccably quiet.

As can be gathered from the graphic below, the voltages were spot
on and we had not monitored much fluctuation at all with the lines.

Conclusion:

SilverStone generally does not venture into the area of making
low-cost products as they have had much success in just producing the best, high-end
power supplies and computer enclosures for enthusiasts and gamers. However, they
have dabbled with lower-priced ATX enclosures in the past like the Precision
PS02 and have shown they can make good products at a more attractive price.
With the launch of the SilverStone Strider Essential series, they have shown they
too can produce a good power supply for those on a limited budget.

The SST-ST50F-ES is not a power supply you'd want for a new high-end
build, but if you're short on cash and looking for a 500 Watt power supply that
provides a strong +12V rail, a quiet fan, and sports Active PFC with 80 PLUS certification,
the Strider Essential 500W is worth considering. The ST50F-ES can be found at
Internet retailers like Amazon
for just over $50 USD.

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 10,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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